Playing Favorites
by LuipaardJack
Summary: Always asking the questions that Cloud can't answer. CloudxReno slash.
1. Chapter 1

**YAY for inspiration via Fruits Basket. Hope you guys enjoy reading it -- I had tons of fun writing it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own FF7. Review!**

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There was a reason why Cloud didn't like talking to people.

It wasn't that he didn't want to; he simply didn't know how. The ins-and-outs of normal conversation were a mystery. Gods, but Nibelheim had been bad enough. He knew perfectly well that his awkward statements had been collected as jokes and non sequiturs around town. And that rankled, still, even though everyone that had mocked him was dead, or otherwise gone.

Tifa, thank heaven, was eternally patient with him -- he had trouble speaking with her, even now. Barret was content to stuff him full of beer and listen to whatever junk came out of his mouth. Yuffie and Cait Sith talked enough for both of them, Nanaki was often more interested in hunting than speech, and Cid had once told him that if he tried to talk while the pilot was working _ever_ again, he would find out just very big and heavy a monkey wrench could be when shoved into some painful places.

But not even Cloud could be completely clueless about things, so he had managed to pick up some scanty rules about vocal etiquette. The most important being, _If all else fails, keep your mouth shut and listen._

Tifa would say that this was a lesson that he had learned a bit too well. Be that as it may; Cloud clung to it like a lifesaver. A silent, unblinking gaze usually led people to explain themselves more fully, whether out of nervousness or simple determination.

This situation definitely called for his preferred strategy. Though, this time around, it was born out of genuine confusion.

Reno was_looking_ at him. "What's your favorite food?" he asked.

There it was again. That question. How could he answer that?

Cloud frantically ran through various dishes and foods in his mind. Which one was his favorite? Which one did he enjoy over the others?

Well, the answer to that was _none of them_. But he knew that people didn't like hearing "I don't know" in conversation.

_Why are you here?_ He interrogated silently. _What could you possibly want in 7th Heaven --?_

"He's never told me what his favorite food is," Tifa interjected from somewhere underneath the bar. "I just put it in front of him and he eats it."

"That's no way to live," Reno objected. "Man's gotta have somethin' good for his birthday at least."

Tifa emerged, clutching two bottles of vodka in one hand and a beer glass in the other. "He's never said," she stated once more. "Sometimes I think he does it just to irritate me."

_How can I tell you if I don't know?_ Cloud asked silently -- but he knew that saying that wouldn't accomplish anything except general ill-feeling. So back to uninflected staring it was.

There was one thing he did know, however; he didn't want Reno here. If Reno wasn't here, then he wouldn't be obligated to baby sit his scrawny ass to keep the peace in the taproom. If Reno had swaggered in here on his accord and no one was around to keep things in check, then it was practically a given that a brawl would erupt.

But if_Cloud-Strife-Killer-of-Sephiroth-and-Savior-of-Gaia_ sat with him, gigantic sword within easy reach and looking, if not friendly, than at least vaguely chummy, then there wasn't much of a problem. At least, not one that anyone was willing to fight about.

Running over all this in his mind was reassuring; all systems stable, most neurons in good working order. Confusion pushed away, outside of his boundaries.

"Secretive, huh?" Reno grinned at him. Cloud wondered how much the red-head had had to drink. "So, does that mean you won't tell us what your favorite season is? What you want for Yule? Or your favorite color?"

Suddenly glad for his sword nearby, Cloud turned away and gripped the hilt in both hands. The bastard was doing it again; throwing questions his way that he couldn't possibly answer.

The Turk didn't seem very perturbed by what the other patrons were viewing as blatant hostility. "Alright, alright," he said. "I'll leave you alone. That's not really what I came for anyway. Look, Cloud, I hate putting you on the spot, but would you like dinner Saturday night? With me?"

Had someone declared today to be Confuse-the-Hell-Out-of-Cloud-Strife Day?

"Huh?" the blonde replied wisely.

Reno spoke slowly, with the air of someone being deliberately patient. "There's a new place that opened a month ago; casual, so you don't have to worry about any fancy shit. They make killer enchiladas, too. I'm free this Saturday, so I was wondering if you'd like to go."

"Like...a date?" Cloud asked feebly. He clutched the hilt of his weapon even tighter. His anchor in a world that had suddenly gone mad.

"I guess. Kissing and/or making out not required."

Cloud choked at that.

Always with the impossible questions. Why was it Reno that always asked him the hard ones? His feelings about the other man were strange enough as it was, and _besides_--

_Trap,_ the primitive corner of his mind muttered. The primitive corner that had gotten so very much stronger all those years ago, when the first Jenova cells had entered his body. _Trap, trying to hurt, to find weakness, eliminate the threat and protect your precious peoples' place --_

His desperate attempts to thwart his rising instincts made his deaf and blind to Reno's next statement. When he'd finally blinked the static away from his eyes and hearing had returned, he asked, "Come again?"

"I said, if you can't make it, it's okay."

"No, I --" _trap, trap, eliminate and protect_ " --I'm free. I'm...sure. I'll go."

Oh, damn. Oh, damn, damn, damn, _damn,_ why did Reno have to look so happy?

"Awesome! Do you want me to pick you up, or --"

"Just tell me where it is. I can find it."

And Reno nodded, and bought another drink. _And that's more coin in Tifa's pocket, more money for the bar, and gods above, __**Reno**__ just asked me out on a date and I went and said __**yes**__, oh, Barret is going to __**love**__ this one..._

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"Just shoot me."

"We don't have any guns," Tifa replied, not looking up from the stove. "Sit down and eat your breakfast."

Cloud was feeling distinctly put upon. It just wasn't fair.

Stupid Reno with stupid dates, and stupid Cloud with a stupid crush that was hanging on for dear life. Wasn't he too old for this kind of thing? Didn't hormones level out after a certain number of years?

Of course, it was possible that it wouldn't work that way for him. After all, he'd been trapped in Hojo's laboratory for the better half of his adolescence, where they had _tied him down and stuck him with their needles, making him forget he wasn't a child anymore, punishment for good dreams..._

There. He had someone to blame for all this; it was almost comforting to think, _This is all Hojo's fault._

He sat down at the table, and tried not to think about the fact that for the first time in six years, he had a date.

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Within the next three days, any thought Tifa might have given to jealousy was taken up by franticly wishing that Saturday would come soon. Cloud was being even more taciturn than usual -- at first, seemingly apathetic to the event. That wore off by the second day, where he simply stayed up in his room, fretting, except at meal times. On Friday, the third day, he kept trying to bolt out the door and ride into the sunset on Fenrir. Tifa finally threatened to staple him into his chair and Marlene scolded him for trying to run out on Reno.

Cloud personally thought that they were both being very unfair.

And then, finally, Saturday arrived. Cloud was in a state of near-hysteria.

"Why?!" he wailed. "Why did I say yes? Oh, my god, this is going to be horrible, he'll -- I --"

"Will not have sex," Tifa finished for him. The possibility had been one that he had been brooding about from the beginning.

_"Don't say it!"_

They had agreed to meet at the restaurant at seven. It took a massive group effort, but Cloud was finally forced through the door by 6:30.

"HAVE FUN!" Tifa shouted after him. "AND USE PROTECTION!"

Cloud might have whimpered in protest, but any possible sound was lost in the roar of Fenrir's engine.

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For a wonder, Cloud had not had to track down the location of the restaurant. He had made exactly two deliveries for them within the last two weeks; if he had thought about it more deeply, he might have seen the Hand of Fate, or perhaps Rufus behind that. But he was far too wound up to consider that.

Currently, he was banging his head with abandon against the dash. _Stupid, stupid, you should have made up some sort of excuse, why did you have to say 'yes' you dumb blonde --_

To top it all off, his hair was still wet. He _detested_ having wet hair. What was it with Tifa and her obsession with showers?

Suddenly, he tensed. The sounds of a car engine had pricked his ears.

_Auuugh, he's here, auuugh, nononononononono..._

Yes, it was Reno, flaming red hair bright against a white button down shirt. Which was open at the collar, exposing the elegant lines of his collarbones.

_Auuugh..._

Cloud quickly looked at Reno's ride, lest he be accused of staring. It was...well, it was red, for one thing. It was also a car, an oddity in this town -- if only because trucks were more useful, and motorcycles were easier to gas up due to their smaller tanks.

"Triumph Spitfire," Cloud identified, once Reno had parked next to him and switched off the engine.

"Damn straight," Reno replied with a grin. "Best ride I've ever had, for all that its vintage."

"It's very...red."

"It is that."

"I mean it's -- it's really red."

"You don't like red, Cloud?"

For some reason, this made his cheeks flame. "No! That's not it, it's just really red! Really, really red! That's all!"

"You don't have to get upset," Reno said in a mild voice, looking slightly injured.

"I'm not upset! Who said I was upset?! It's just a really red car! I like red!"

Not for the first time, Cloud was experiencing a sinking sensation deep in the pits of his stomach. _I'm still on the bike, _he thought desperately._ I could drive off, leave, and I'd never have to see him again..._

"Do you like the color red, Cloud?" Reno asked.

_Huh?_

"I mean, I know a lot of the things you own are black, but still." Then Reno snapped his fingers, as if an epiphany had just hit him. "Hey! Your stool back at the bar had a red cover in it, didn't it? And that ribbon you gave Marlene was red, too."

Cloud stared at him, unable to process the situation. Red? He liked _red?_ "Well -- I guess -- I mean --"

"Hey, that's awesome! I bet you're in love with me or something because of my red hair!" And Reno threw back his head and laughed.

The laughter was quickly cut off by Cloud wildly sputtering, "You -- you -- you --_you_!"

"Me?"

_"YOU!"_

Cloud jumped off the bike, grabbed Reno by his collar, and dragged him out of the Spitfire. Then, hand still full of white fabric, the exSOLDIER entered the restaurant.

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Reno was in a very good mood two hours later. The hilarity of the night would make a good story for Rude on the next stake-out. He delivered Cloud to 7th Heaven, and with a smirk, said to Tifa, "Cloud's favorite color is _red_."

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**Just to clarify Cloud's feelings: he likes Reno -- he likes Reno a **_**lot**_** -- but he's also an emotional retard, and needs to be guided gently into these things. Reno hasn't figured it out yet.**

**Think I should write a sequel?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two. Yay. Review.  
**

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Cloud woke slowly the next morning. Since he was facing the clock, he could see that it was hardly eight. Deciding that he could sleep in a little, he closed his eyes again and drifted for a brief time.

He had forgotten however, to reckon with the children.

There was no particular rhyme or reason to their morning visits; a whole month could pass before they burst through the door.

Still, he had a whole hour to doze before the door banged open and two small blurs sped through the opening to leap onto his bed.

Cloud grunted as Marlene and Denzel landed rather heavily on top of him. There was a brief flurry of activity as they created their separate nests in his comforter, and immediately started babbling at him.

"Good morning, good morning, good morning!"

"You sleep too much!"

"Tifa's making pancakes if you come down soon!"

"With real butter!"

"Is that red-haired guy your boyfriend now?"

...What?

Cloud sat up and looked suspiciously at Marlene, who had posed the question. "Excuse me?"

"Daddy called last night, and we told him that you were out on a date, and he said that if two people go out on a date than that makes the other person your girlfriend." Marlene frowned a little. "But the red-haired guy is a guy, so doesn't that mean he's you boyfriend?"

That peculiar defensiveness rose up in him again. "I -- Reno and I aren't -- we're just not!"

Marlene was too used to Cloud's taciturn ways to be offended. "Then why did you go on a date with him?"

Cloud stopped trying to explain. It was obviously too complicated a subject for a child to understand.

"Pancakes?" he said instead, looking at Denzel, who nodded eagerly.

He shooed the children out, and got out of bed to get dressed. He looked in the mirror and realized he was blushing.

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Unfortunately, breakfast did not prove to be peaceful. When Cloud made it downstairs, Marlene was babbling at Tifa about Reno, and how he was now Cloud's Significant Other.

Cloud found that extremely offensive.

"It was just a _date_!" he wailed.

"Don't yell this early in the morning," Tifa said, and smacked him over the head with a spatula.

He sulked for a while after that.

But Tifa brought it up again later. "How did it go, anyway?" she asked.

He pushed a cut up pancake piece around his plate. "It was fine."

"He didn't--?"

"No. Nothing like that. It was fine," he said again.

For some reason, he didn't want to tell her that Reno was clever, that Reno was funny. That the red-head had made him smile twice, and once, nearly laugh out loud.

"Do you like him?"

"I like him just fine."

"No, I mean --"

"Are you going to marry him?" Denzel asked, which made Cloud's introspective mood evaporate very quickly.

Since everyone seemed determined to twist the story around so that it had him pining for the Turk, Cloud decided that the best solution was to retreat to the garage, and give Fenrir a tune-up. (Because he was not pining for Reno. He was not! He didn't pine for anyone! Except for that one time. With Zack. And then there had been Aeris. But that didn't really count, did it?)

Feeling very out-of-sorts with himself, the blonde sat his ass down in front of the motorcycle after breakfast and set to work.

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Reno didn't come back to the bar that Sunday night; he didn't have the time, because he was leaving for a mission. A potentially deadly one, if the gossip on the street was to be believed.

Near midnight, Cloud took the rooftops of Edge.

It was a nice way to wile away the hours of the night; leaping from roof top to roof top, the created wind tugging at his hair. He wasn't very surprised though, when Tifa called his phone asking him what he was doing at this time of night. He couldn't answer at the time, since he was too busy somersaulting over a misplaced clothesline. And once he listened to her message, it seemed too much trouble to call her back; so he sent her a text instead, saying that he was out for a walk.

Yeah. A walk.

Somehow, he ended up near the Shinra building. On sudden impulse, he edited his trajectory so that he headed towards it. Sprinting up the side, he wondered suddenly what Reno was doing at this time of night. Idle curiosity.

He caught the edge of the roof with one hand before he ran out of wall. Getting himself up and over the edge was a simple matter of pulling, and he landed lightly in an animal-like crouch -- knees bent, weight on his gloved hands, and head forward with the same air of a cat with its ears pricked.

A helicopter was being prepped in front of him. Cloud quietly sought cover behind emptied crates that were all leaking excelsior at their seams, and waited. He tensed slightly when Rufus emerged from a stairwell, Tseng close behind.

Focused as he was on the President, he barely noticed the shuffling behind him.

"What'cha doin', babe?"

There wasn't any real thought-process involved in what Cloud did next. It was pure reflex; he reached out with one hand and dragged Reno down next to him until their heads were hardly two inches apart.

"Ain't this a bit fast?" Reno asked weakly. Cloud hushed him, straining his ears to hear what was being said. And then, a favorable wind blew Rufus' voice to his ears.

"...and find it quick. We need to get a lid on this. For everyone's good."

"And Reno?"

"Let him keep going. If we can make Strife more malleable, so much for the better."

The hand still wrapped around Reno's bicep began tightening noticeably. "It ain't like that," the Turk hissed. "It ain't!"

"Tell me later," Cloud growled. "Unless you're going on this one?"

As Reno shook his head, the wind blew more easterly, and any further conversation was swept away by the breeze.

Still keeping a firm grip on Reno's arm, Cloud silently slid off the rooftop.

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"Man, come on! You know this won't work on me!"

"Shut up," Cloud replied, with more fierceness than he had intended.

Swaying upside in the wind, Reno heaved a sigh. The bungee cords around his ankles being all that were keeping him from falling to his death, he was being rather nonchalant.

"Come on, babe, I told you --"

"Stop calling me 'babe' and answer my goddamn question!"

"Look, the whole idea of asking you out was mine, okay? And it wasn't for Shinra, and it wasn't for blackmail or nothin'. Just thought we could have some fun, because, shit, you need more fun in your life than any other guy I know."

"I'll pretend to believe that for argument's sake. What was Rufus talking about, then?"

"It's not what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking, Reno?"

"Why should I tell you when you already know? Look, we just need your help with some detective work if Elena and Rude's mission doesn't work out, okay?"

"Detective work for what?"

"I can't tell you. Not yet, anyway." Reno sighed again. "If all goes well, you'll never have to know, and the human race will be all the safer with it."

Cloud examined him with that blank stare. He doubted he'd get much more out of the other man; classified was classified and misplaced or not, Reno's loyalty to Shinra was something that couldn't be gainsaid.

The blonde stood and began to untie the stolen bungee cords from around the buttress. The stone of Aeris' church was warm underneath his bare feet. He wondered if that meant she approved of what he was doing.

"If it's any help," Reno said as the ropes started to fall away. "Rufus wanted me to try and use you. But I told him to go to hell, seeing as how you and I are private. And that if he wanted your help, he'd get it a lot better with honesty than with trying to force you."

Cloud had paused in undoing his knots when Reno had first started talking, and now he stood quietly, thinking. The icy ball in his chest that Rufus had unwittingly created was melting a little.

He bent and picked up his shoes, and started to walk away.

"Hey!" Reno wailed. "That ain't fair, don't leave me!"

"Get yourself out," Cloud called back.


End file.
